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Scorched Earth Tactic
The Scorched Earth Tactic or Policy is a military strategy that is used to slow down or stop the advance of an opposing army or to cover the retreat of the defenders. The general purpose of the strategy is to deny resources for the enemy to use. Any assets that could be used by the enemy may be targeted, for example food sources, water supplies, transportation, communications, industrial resources, and even the locale's people themselves. The essential part of this tactic is that the assets must be vital to the enemy if not it will be equal to shoot yourself and let the enemy to advance further. If used against a medieval army who uses horses, wyvern and/or travel by foot this tactic can be considered effective, with detrimental effects to both sides, as it starves and weaken the invading army who takes days to weeks just to travel place to place by preventing them from nourishing their fatigued soldiers and poisoning dehydrated men thus forcing them to withdraw or force to face the enemy in a disadvantageous state during sieges. However, this tactic is virtually useless against the JSDF who have little to no need for the local resources to supply their mechanized forces. As the JSDF unlike the any medieval army can travel in a fast pace and carries their own preservatived rations and clean water during trips and having transport helicopters drop supplies to them in a short amount of time.. Furthermore, it has the detrimental effect of harming the Empire's citizens, landscape and political power. This policy also caused the Empire citizens to revile the Empire as a whole as evidence of this is the failure to recruit of the new Empire army after the war, since all the citizens hate the Empire and none want enlist anymore. Thus resulting for the Empire to be vulnerable to bandit and pirate attacks and foreign invasion. Usage Emperor Molt Sol Augustus decided to use this tactic after the disastrous Second Battle of Alnus Hill. This meant poisoning all water supplies, confiscating crops and livestock and burning down villages in the path of the invaders. Officially, this was intended to deny the JSDF any resources to continue their assault against the Empire , but in secret, it was meant to further weaken the vassal states so they would be unable to rise up and challenge the Empire. This scheme fails on both counts as the JSDF is not like the medieval armies the Empire has fought in the past and the vassal states later ally themselves with Japan against the Empire. After Zorzal El Caesar's Coup and takeover, this policy is inanely again repeated in the Imperial Scorch Earth Atrocities due to Zorzal and his pro-war senators's stupidity and ignorance as well as their inability to learn from Molt's short-sighted mistake, causing even more instability within the Empire and its vassal states, in terms of politics, economy and resources. Due to the complete lack of understanding that the JSDF can easily supply itself and does not depend on the same resources that a medieval army requires, the tactic only served to hasten the near-obliteration of the Imperial Army and the near-total collapse of the Empire Itself. For instance, after the JSDF Blitzkrieg against Zorzal, many Pro-War soldiers who fled from battle were often chased by the villagers who were the victims of Scorched Earth tactics. This lead to the soldiers being killed. Ban Due to the detrimental effects the tactic has on the citizens and landscape, Empress Pina Co Lada has banned the usage of such a strategy, as it has proven to be ineffective and does far more harm to the Empire than to the enemy. However, this may be too little too late, as Pina Col Lada stated that it will take a century for the Empire to recover. Category:Terminology